Visit And Enjoy, Yet Leave No Trace

The idea of a carbon footprint is no longer anything new. Unless you live in an undiscovered rainforest, in which case, you aren’t reading this, you will have heard about your carbon footprint.

Is keeping your carbon footprint compatible with seeing all the world has to offer?

The answer is that it doesn’t have to be. You can get out and explore in a way where you minimize the effect that you have.

Tourism brings in money, but

There is no doubt that local economies benefit from the money which comes from the visitor’s dollars. Those dollars create jobs, they inject capital into the community and in the case of some countries, they create a steam of foreign currency which opens the door to equitable trade.

But a foreign currency stream also can undermine the local economy by making their own currency of no value.

Ecotourism starts with a quest to both conserve the environment and protect the well-being of the local people. This is not necessarily a given.

This is not necessarily an easy mantle. You’re a tourist, your desire is to be on vacation. How can you possibly be responsible for the Human Rights or the democracy of the country you’re visiting?

You drop in for a week or two, how can you carry a responsibility?

It is a little like becoming doctor. The Hippocratic oath demands of doctors that they first ‘do no harm’. Ecotourism could do worse than start from that perspective. Do no harm to the locality and leave no evidence that you were there.